Life in prison for former officials of Argentine dictatorship

Buenos Aires, Aug 29 (DPA) Two former high officials of the last military dictatorship in Argentina have been sentenced to life in prison by a federal court in the northern Argentine city of San Miguel de Tucuman.The judgement on Antonio Bussi and Luciano Benjamin Menendez was announced Thursday.

The two former military officers were found guilty of crimes against humanity during the dictatorship, as co-authors of the disappearance of former senator Guillermo Vargas Aignasse in 1976.

During the 1976-83 Argentine dictatorship some 30,000 people disappeared, according to human rights organisations.

Kidnapping, torture and murder were used systematically by agents of the regime, and the bodies of thousands of people presumed killed during the military regime have never been found.